


you could be an angel

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bad Sex, Breathplay, Buzz cut, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daddy kink (just a bit), Decent Sex, Emotional Sex, Friendship, Haircuts, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Minor Injuries, Praise Kink, Pre-Canon, Recovery, Sharing a Bed, Size Difference, Size Kink, Smoking, Teenagers, dealing with the consequences of their actions, devastatingly juvenile handjobs, i wonder how long that will last, oh and, well...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-08 00:22:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21466975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: The woman narrowed her eyes at him. “You know why they’re letting him out?”“Because he’s sane, I hope.”The woman barked a laugh. “‘Cause he’s making the rest of them antsy, the way he screams.”Chas picks up John from Ravenscar. John has a buzz-cut. It's very distracting.
Relationships: Chas Chandler/John Constantine
Comments: 11
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

Chas gave the dreary front room of Ravenscar Psychiatric Facility a semi-critical once-over.

It didn’t look like any hospital Chas had ever been to. It didn’t have any of the usual trimmings—no polished tile or waiting room chairs. It looked more like a prison.

That made it a little easier. He’d bailed John out of jail before.

There was a desk with a woman sitting at it, a barrier stretching from each side of the desk all the way to the walls, dividing the entry space from the hallways beyond. The half-walls were solid brick, except for a gate on one side of the desk that wouldn’t stop a determined toddler.

“Cheery,” Chas muttered, walking up to the desk. He had to stoop to look at the woman properly. There was an ashtray on the desk, overflowing. “Hullo.”

“Visiting?” the woman droned, not looking up from the copy of _ The Yorkshire Post _ she had spread out on the table _ . _ It was dated from the day before, and had a picture of a burnt-out building on the page it was open to. Chas didn’t look close enough to see if it was Newcastle. He was tired of seeing pictures of Newcastle.

“Picking someone up, actually. John Constantine.”

That got the woman’s attention. She folded the newspaper and set it aside. “What’s he to you?”

Chas frowned. There was something in her tone that made him uneasy. “He’s my mate, inne?”

“You gonna stay with him afterward?”

Chas hadn’t been planning to, but now that he thought about it, John didn’t have anywhere to go. It was probably too much to hope for that any of John’s surviving bandmates would be willing to house him.

“Suppose I will be.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at him. “You know why they’re letting him out?”

“Because he’s sane, I hope.”

The woman barked a laugh. “‘Cause he’s making the rest of them antsy, the way he screams.”

“Mr. Chandler, I assume?”

Chas startled upright.

A man in a suit that seemed too fancy for a psychiatric hospital had approached without Chas noticing. He stood with his hands on the brick half-wall, watching Chas with impenetrable eyes.

“That’s me,” Chas said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m here for John.”

The man nodded. “I’m Dr. Huntoon. I’ve been personally overseeing Mr. Constantine’s care.”

Chas distrusted the man immensely. “Francis Chandler. My friends call me Chas.”

“All right, Chas,” Dr. Huntoon opened the gate and gestured Chas through.

“I didn’t say _ you _ could,” Chas snapped, brushing past him. “Where’s John?”

“He’s in the rec room. Follow me.”

Chas followed, feeling a bit like a dog. Fetch this, Chas. Get that, Chas. Wait in the car while we summon a fucking demon, Chas. Come get me, Chas.

Dr. Huntoon gave him a sideways glance, as if he could see what Chas was thinking. He was an unpleasant looking man, skin drooping off his face like he’d lost a lot of weight recently, eyes beady and shrewdish in their sockets.

They didn’t quite stare at each other as they walked, but the intent was there. Observation. Chas wondered what the doctor saw in him. A loyal idiot, like John did?

“Here,” Dr. Huntoon said, stopping in front of a room that did, in fact, have a faded sign that said _ Rec Room. _He opened the door.

The first sign that something was wrong with John was the fact that Chas’ eyes skipped right over him.

Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. The first sign of trouble would probably be the fact that Chas was picking John up from a bloody mental hospital. 

Or the whole… summoning a demon to stop a cultist, instead of just calling the police, and consequently causing and being blamed for the death of a girl… thing. That might have been a clue.

Or his accent. Nothing good ever came from a scouser. 

Whichever way you cut it, it wasn’t like John to be unnoticeable. He wasn’t particularly tall, and only as handsome as a twenty-something built like a dead man could be, but he had a _ presence _, a defiant jubilance.

But Chas couldn’t pick him out of the group of patients, all in the same badly-washed grey scrubs, sitting in chairs or on the floor of the room, playing chess or cards or just _ sitting _, staring into space.

Finally, Chas found him. He was sitting in the back corner, wedged between two walls, smoking a cigarette. Even being hospitalized hadn’t cut his habit.

His hair was buzzed.

Not just cut, which it had desperately needed by the time they’d gotten to Newcastle, but shaved off. With his face turned, it bared his jawline to starving sharpness.

“John!” Chas called, feeling something painfully and indescribably close to relief.

For the moment between when Chas called out and when John turned his head, Chas’ stomach plummeted with worry—why, he couldn’t say. Maybe that he had the wrong person. Maybe that John wouldn’t recognize him.

But John turned, and saw Chas, and maybe Chas was damned for how easily that look made him cave, but that didn’t matter right now.

All that mattered was John, stubbing out his cigarette in the corner he’d been sitting in and standing up just in time for Chas to gather him up in his arms.

All that mattered was John’s buzzed-to-softness hair under one of Chas’ palms, and the awful scratchiness of the hospital-prison uniform under the other, and John, John, _ John. _

Dr. Huntoon made a sound that could have been a laugh, or just a cough. Chas turned around, one arm still around John’s back. “What?”

The doctor gestured to the door, and Chas walked John toward it. John didn’t even resist, leaning into Chas’s side. He didn’t even speak until the woman at the desk whistled sharply.

“See you in Hell, Johnny-boy,” she said.

“I’ll save you a seat,” John called back.

Chas ushered him the rest of the way out of the building. John was trembling by the time they got to the cab.

“John,” Chas said. He opened the passenger door and helped John in. Christ, but he was small. All bones under the grey scrubs. “John.”

“Chas,” John grated out. “Didn’t think you would come.”

Chas didn’t know what to say to that. “You asked me to.”

John let his head fall down and to the side, so he was looking at Chas out of the corner of his eye. “I did.”

Chas felt that they were skirting the edge of a conversation he didn’t want to have. He closed the passenger door, walked around the cab, and got into the driver’s seat. 

Absently, John pulled out a cigarette and lit it from the dashboard plug. 

“I got you some clothes,” Chas said, mundanely. The cab rocked as he turned out of Ravenscar’s gravel driveway and onto the road. “A few things, so you have choices.”

“Nice of you,” John mumbled around the cigarette. “You got my jacket?”

Chas knew the jacket he was talking about. It was made of good black leather and covered in silver studs. It had been John’s first purchase with his own money.

He’d worn it into and out of Newcastle.

It had been in the pile of clothing and personal items that the staff of Ravenscar had dumped in his arms when he handed John over to them. It had smelled of rotten blood and sulfur. Chas had thrown it in the first landfill he found. 

“I couldn’t find it. Probably left it behind.”

John nodded. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and offered it to Chas. They used to have to budget things like cigarettes, and all of them smoked, so they passed them around like party favors. 

Chas had stopped smoking after Newcastle. The smell made him queasy. He took a drag anyway, and passed it back. Marlboro, not John’s favored Silk Cut.

“You can wear mine,” Chas said, trying to make conversation with the emptiness in John’s eyes, as they passed the cigarette between them.

“Wouldn’t fit me.”

“Yeah, fair.”

Chas had given up the leather after Newcastle too. He’d given up a lot, really. Everything but driving.

“I’m a cabbie, now,” he said, a little helplessly. “Bit like being a roadie.”

John nodded, but he didn’t speak. Chas realized that he’d lost him.

_ He’s had a shock _ , he reassured himself. _ He’ll be back to his old self soon enough. _

-

John was silent all the way through the drive and up to the door of Chas’ flat. “This is the homestead, then? You have a missus I should know about?”

“It’s only been six months, John,” Chas said, unlocking the door. “My rebound period is a bit longer than that.”

“You say that like _ we _ were married,” John snorted.

Chas decided, after a moment, not to respond to that. “You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“It’s your flat, mate.”

“You can’t have it forever. Just for a night or two. It’s got to be better for your back than wherever they had you kip in that fucking prison.”

“Was more like a hospital,” John said, lighting another cigarette and watching Chas get linens out of the closet.

“Dunno what kind of hospital you’re going to,” Chas retorted. “Try not to smoke in bed, all right? I don’t need a fire.”

John didn’t respond.

Chas tossed a folded blanket onto the sofa. “I’ll order takeout, so—whoa, John!” 

Chas crossed the space and grabbed the cigarette before it dropped from between John’s fingers. “John. Hey.”

John’s eyes were blank, and his knees were buckling.

Chas stuck the cigarette in the corner of his own mouth, holding John up. “Hey. Hey. Come back, John.”

Chas had seen this before. Something would happen, and John would freeze up and panic, or shake, or try to hide.

John never really explained why it happened, but Chas could piece together all that he needed to know from conversations they’d had about their childhoods.

It wasn’t often that Chas would say it, but maybe he’d had a _ better _ childhood than John. That was a scary thought.

“John. Come on. All right. I’m putting you on the floor. The carpet’s shite. Sorry. Okay. I’ve got to put the cigarette out. You just sit for a second, okay?”

Chas put the cigarette out in the kitchen sink, got the heavy wool blanket he’d bought at a yard sale, and came back to find John right where he’d left him, surprisingly enough, huddled against the side of the couch.

Sighing softly, Chas bundled him up in the wool blanket and went to order them something for dinner.

-

It took a couple of mugs of tea and a few cartons of Chinese takeout—including one entirely of rice—before John really seemed to come back to himself.

“Wasn’t quite like a hospital,” John said, with no preamble. “Wasn’t quite like a prison, either. It was…”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Good.” John reached over and took a forkful of Chas’ orange chicken.

Chas sighed at him, moving the empty containers out of the way. “Hungry?”

“Famished.”

Chas relinquished the orange chicken without complaint. It was good that John was eating. He’d never been a big eater. For all his bravado, John liked to keep himself small, appetite included.

“You want dessert?” Chas asked, half-joking. “I’ve got some ice cream.”

“Sure.”

Chas stood, half-bewildered that this was happening. There was John, not in leather but in a plaid blanket over his Ravenscar scrubs—_ shit. _

“I forgot to give you your clothes,” Chas said, turning on his heel so he was facing the bedroom and not the kitchen.

When he returned with the armful of fabric, John looked up from what was left of the orange chicken. “I thought you were getting me ice cream.”

“I will,” Chas tossed the bundle at John. “See if those fit you.”

When Chas came back with two bowls of ice cream, John was still shirtless.

He was wearing the ripped jeans that Chas had found for him from the collection of changes of clothes in the back of the van, though they were looser on him than they used to be.

And he was _ shirtless. _

There was a burn scar crawling up his side, like a lash mark, and his prominent ribs were decorated with prison tattoos of strange symbols.

Chas swallowed hard, setting the ice cream down. “Shirts don’t fit?”

“Just deciding between them.” John turned the two t-shirts around. “Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones?”

“Zeppelin,” Chas said, digging into his ice cream, watching out of the corner of his eye as John slipped the shirt on, his shaved head emerging from the folds of it.

“Good?” John asked. Sometime after Newcastle, he’d had the piercings taken out of his ears, and the holes had healed into lumps of scar tissue.

Chas set his spoon down and leaned over, rubbing John’s buzz-cut until he squirmed like a cat.

“Good,” Chas replied, thinking that maybe, everything had a chance to turn out right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m not—” John growled. “It’s different.”_
> 
> _Chas closed his hands around John’s waist and sat him up, trying to be comforting. “I didn’t say it wasn’t.”_
> 
> _John blinked, twice. If Chas squeezed, just slightly, he could make his fingertips meet around John’s back._
> 
> _John gasped for air. Chas loosened his grip._
> 
> Devastatingly juvenile handjobs.

John’s appetite hadn’t abated after the ice cream, so Chas brought him a bag of slightly squashed crisps from the cupboard.

While John ate, Chas leaned back against the couch and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels.

Uninterested in any of the drama playing out in Wednesday-night TV specials, Chas let his awareness drift back to John.

Both of John’s legs were thrown over one of Chas’. It wasn’t even a natural way for him to settle—he had twisted sideways to be able to do it, one shoulder against the couch, half-hunched over the crisp bag.

Some habits died hard, apparently. When Mucous Membrane was touring, there hadn’t been any personal space. Frank had his bike, and Judith could ride with him, but the rest of them were crammed into Chas’ van with their instruments. With that and the fact that they were too poor for more than one or two hotel rooms, the whole band got comfortable sitting close.

“So, how’s everyone?” John asked.

Chas’ hand froze on the remote. Static flickered across the screen. “They’re, uh.”

“Bad, huh?” John asked.

“You got shipped off to a psych ward, and you expected anything better?”

John held the crisp bag up to his mouth and shook the crumbs into his mouth.

Chas’ hands were shaking. “Ben’s got an awful stutter now. Last I heard he moved back to Wisconsin with his mum.”

John balled up the crisp packet. “Poor sod.”

“Anne-Marie’s joined a convent, and Judith went to South America. Apparently she needed to… find herself. Frank started biking again. Richie went into some computer job.”

“Uh-huh.” John smoothed the packet out again. “What about Gaz?”

“He’s on the needle.” Chas reached over and took the bag away, then covered John’s fidgeting hands with his own. “John.”

“What?” John’s hands were cold. His knuckles jutted out like railroad spikes under Chas’ palms.

Chas worried his lower lip with his teeth. “What about you?”

“You know what happened to me.”

“Do I have to worry about… that?”

John bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. “I’m not a big fan of needles.”

“You’ve got prison tattoos on your ribs.”

“Protective symbols,” John retorted. His shoulders were tense, like he was expecting a fight.

“Still needles.”

“I’m not Gary, Chas,” John said, lowly. “I’m made of stronger stuff than him.”

Their faces were inches apart. Chas could see each of John’s eyelashes when he blinked.

Chas reached up and ran a hand over John’s shorn head. When John didn’t flinch in response, Chas moved his hand down John’s neck and dragged it down his back, digging his fingertips in where he knew the edges of the burn were. “Right.”

John hissed a breath in through his teeth and threw himself forward, ramming himself against Chas’ chest. Chas let the force knock him backward, so John was laid out on top of him, Chas’ hand still on his back.

“I’m not—” John growled. “It’s different.”

Chas closed his hands around John’s waist and sat him up, trying to be comforting. “I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

John blinked, twice. If Chas squeezed, just slightly, he could make his fingertips meet around John’s back.

John gasped for air. Chas loosened his grip.

“Chas?” John asked.

“I was worried,” Chas said, sitting up, tugging John by the waist so that he was straddling one of Chas’ thighs. “I worried about you. It took me _ months _ to get the story out of anyone, much less where I could find you. They were quicker to say Gary had a heroin habit than tell me you were locked up.”

John squirmed. “I’m sorry, mate.”

Chas shifted one hand back up to John’s head, pulling him into his shoulder. “I thought you were dead. Or arrested for murder.”

“Which would be worse?” John breathed. “Because I’ve been both, in the last six months.”

Chas’ heart skipped a beat. He knew John had noticed, because he kissed Chas’ pulse-point and mumbled an apology.

“It wasn’t for long.” John muttered. “Not guilty by reason of insanity,” 

Chas slipped his free hand into the waistband of John’s trousers. For a moment, he was glad John had lost weight. In the days with the band, his jeans had been too tight for Chas to get his hands into. “And you died?”

“Just for a second,” John’s voice cracked up an octave. “Shit, _ Chas— _”

Chas shifted his weight, trying to unbutton John’s fly with just his thumb. “How’d it happen?”

John’s breath came hot against Chas’ neck. He tried to lift his head, fighting the weight of Chas’ palm. “Fuck, let me… let me turn around.”

Chas let him. John shoved his jeans and boxers down and settled into Chas’ lap. “I wouldn’t drink anything. They put me on an IV after they resuscitated me.”

Chas wrapped one arm around John’s stomach, and lifted the other to John’s mouth. “Spit.”

“Spit?”

“You don’t want me to jerk you with a dry hand, do you?”

John spat. 

Chas hooked his chin over John’s shoulder so he could see what he was doing and took John’s cock in his hand, stroking him to hardness.

John whined. “Mmh, Chas, good, that’s good.”

“Yeah?” Chas squeezed slightly, and John groaned. “Haven’t done this in a while.”

John squirmed, rocking back against Chas. “Doesn’t… show.”

“You’re just easy,” Chas tried to get his free hand between John’s hips and his. “Lean forward.”

“Do you have lube?” John asked, breathless. “Condoms?”

“What makes you think I’m going to fuck you?” Chas grabbed John by one bony hip and moved him forward until he could get his fly undone.

“I’d like you to,” John huffed, then whimpered as Chas stroked him. “Wouldn’t you like to?”

“Not like this.” Chas kissed John’s neck, nipped at his piercing-scarred ear. “I’d want to do it properly.”

John moaned. “You saying this ain’t proper?”

Chas ignored him, trying to get his jeans down one-handed. He had to prop John on one knee and then the other to do it. John didn’t complain. He didn’t seem to have the voice to, so long as Chas was stroking his cock.

“Ah, Chas, fuck, I can _ feel _ you. You’re so fucking big, Chas, why don’t you fuck me?”

“I don’t,” Chas said. His palm was drying out, but John just squirmed harder.

“Don’t, fuck, Chas, Chas please, _ Chas, _don’t what?”

Chas squeezed the base of John’s cock, cutting off his crescendoing moans into a disappointed whine. “Have any lube.”

“Why should that stop you?” John groaned, turning in Chas’ arms and dislodging his hand. He straddled Chas’ thigh, rutting against him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Chas said, closing his hands around John’s waist, squeezing the breath out of him, just enough to make John gasp.

“What if I want you to?” John buried his face in Chas’ neck as Chas let go of his waist to stroke him again. “What if I said please, _ Daddy _, would you please fuck me?”

_ I still wouldn’t _, Chas thought, but he didn’t speak, just tightened his grip and jerked John to a messy orgasm.

“So much for Zeppelin,” John said, his voice fuzzy and muffled against Chas’ neck.

“That’s your first thought?” Chas asked, shifting John on his lap.

John was quiet for a moment. “Do you want me to blow you?”

Chas stroked John’s buzzed hair with two fingertips. “That’s not even your t-shirt.”

“I’m wearing it.” A heavy, muggy pause. John reached down, curling one hand lazily around Chas’ cock. “Whose is it?”

“Gary’s.”

John dragged his thumb across the tip of Chas’ cock, slicking his fingers with pre-come. “Comes full-circle, does it?”

“It’s a small circle,” Chas huffed out a breath, curling his fingers against John’s head. For the first time since they’d walked out of Ravenscar, he wished that John’s hair was longer.

“It’s been six months.” John’s hand was trembling. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant. “You still have our clothes?”

“It’s only been six months,” Chas retorted. He moaned, shakily. “It felt wrong to throw them out.”

John leaned his head back into Chas’ hand. “_ Do _ you want me to blow you?”

“This is fine,” Chas said, barely audibly. “You’re… this is good. You’re good, John.”

John shook. He shut his eyes, ducking his head so quickly into Chas’ shoulder that he left Chas’ grasping hand hanging. 

Chas let his hand fall to John’s shaking shoulder, covering it with his palm.

“John?”

John squeezed Chas’ cock. “Let me? Just let me, Chas.”

“I want you like this.” Chas grabbed the back of John’s neck, to keep his head from dipping down. “Just like this, John, it’s good. You’re good.”

John gasped out a breath, his quivering fingers doing more work than his wrist. Chas came into his palm, gasping praise that only made John shake harder.

“John,” Chas said, as soon as he had his voice back. John’s hands were slick, and still trembling. “John.”

John looked up.

“Go wash your hands. And your face.”

John stood up, and went to obey.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not to me, not if it’s you, etc.

They shared the shower, and then the bed.

The shower was big enough, but the bed was an awkward fit. It was only a twin, barely wide enough for Chas to roll over, but John tucked himself small against Chas’ chest, and Chas let him.

“Give me your arm,” John muttered, tugging Chas’ wrist until he could rest his head on his upper arm. “You bloody bachelor. Why don’t you have more than one pillow?”

“I don’t need more than one pillow for this bed.” Chas draped his other arm over John, pulling him closer.

“Get a bigger bed.”

Chas pressed his mouth against the back of John’s head. It was still damp from the shower, but just barely. “I might.”

“How long does it take to get a bed in?” John wondered, his voice fuzzing over with sleepiness. “More than a day?”

“Probably not. Otherwise, where would you sleep?”

“The couch?”

“Not everyone has a couch.”

“So the…” John yawned. “Yeah.”

Chas waited patiently.

“They would have to do it in one day,” John decided.

Chas held him just a little tighter

“Where do you work, now?” John asked, after a pause.

“I told you already.” Not that John had been listening.

John shrugged. “I must not have been listening.”

“I’m a cabbie,” Chas said.

John chuckled. Chas felt the vibration of it, from where his fingertips touched John’s chest. “Of course you are.”

“I’m good at navigating.” Chas said.

“I always thought it was… weird,” John’s voice stuttered over a muffled yawn. “How we never got lost.”

“We did get lost,” Chas shifted. His arm would be asleep before he was, but John didn’t seem inclined to move.

“Not in London. Never in London.”

John fell asleep after that, leaving Chas to wonder. Why  _ did _ he never get lost in London?

-

Chas woke from a disorienting dream about strings of lights under London’s streets to find John gone. Not rolled off the side of the bed, not up for a cigarette. Gone from the room entirely.

Padding out of the bedroom in his boxers, disoriented, Chas found John at the kitchen sink, haloed with light by the overhead bulb, hands covered in blood.

“Jesus Christ, John!”

Chas caught John by the wrists. There was broken glass and blood in the sink. Was that why Chas had woken up? A glass breaking?

“Leave off, it’s not bad—” John was saying. Chas was already on autopilot, snatching up a dishtowel and pressing it to the cut on the meat of John’s palm.

“Was this on purpose?” Chas’ voice was rough. “Did you do this?”

“I was getting a drink,” John said quietly, too quietly. “Dropped the glass in the sink, cut myself trying to clean it up.”

Chas didn’t reply, just gritted his teeth and pressed the towel into John’s palm until he hissed in pain.

“Chas, it’s fine,” John whinged. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Chas squeezed John’s towel-wrapped palm between both of his hands. “Fine. I believe you.”

John nodded, exhaling something that might have been acknowledgement and might have been an apology.

“Do you think you need stitches?” Chas asked, once his heartbeat had slowed enough for him to hear himself think.

“Nah.” John tugged his hand in Chas’ grip, but Chas held him fast. “It looked worse than it was.”

Chas wasn’t sure he believed him, but he didn’t want to pull the towel away to check.

“I’m sorry, mate.” 

Chas kissed him, soft and chaste.

John scoffed. “Is that I all I had to do for you to kiss me? Bleed?”

“You could have just asked. Or kissed me first.”

John leaned close, letting his lips graze over Chas’ jawline. “I didn’t want to… make it weird.”

“Yeah, because  _ that _ would’ve made it weird,” Chas said. “Not the bloody… wanking.”

John laughed, brightly enough to be reassuring, and lifted onto his toes to kiss Chas soundly, his free hand fluttering, then coming to rest on Chas’ jaw.

“You’ve, ah, changed,” he murmured, when they broke apart to breathe. “Didn’t have stubble, when I last saw you.”

“Do you like it?” Chas asked.

“Suits you.” John tugged his hand out of Chas’ grip and examined it. The cut had stopped bleeding.

Chas sank to his knees.

“What are you doing down there?” John said, half-startled and half-laughing.

“Getting the first aid kit.” Chas opened the cabinet under the sink and found the kit.

“Oh. Thought you were going to…”

Chas looked up. “Is there something you want?” 

John was silent, staring at Chas through his lashes.

Chas stood up, took John’s wrist, and cleaned the cut on his palm. It took three plasters to cover.

“Chas?” John breathed.

“Yeah?”

John opened his mouth, closed it again, and wrapped his arms around Chas’ neck, kissing him as deeply as he could with the difference in their heights.

Chas folded John into his arms, like he had in Ravenscar, and kissed him until they were both breathless.

“Let’s go to bed,” Chas murmured.

John followed without complaint, huddling into Chas’ side on the bed, tense as a spring.

“Why did you get up?” Chas asked, after a few minutes of stroking John’s hair, trying in vain to calm him down.

“I was thirsty.”

“I’m going back to sleep.” Chas shut his eyes. He could feel John’s heartbeat, his breath, his warmth.

“Okay,” John said. “Sweet dreams, mate.”

-

When Chas woke up again, it was to the greyish light of dawn. 

“John?” he asked, into the hazy not-darkness.

There was no response, just the hiss-click of a lighter.

Chas rolled over, toward the wall, and listened to John breathe, slightly too high and fast at first, then gradually evening out.

When John settled back into bed, smelling of smoke, Chas rolled back over to drape an arm over him. John startled.

“Thought you went back to sleep.”

“Nightmare?” Chas asked, instead of answering.

“Yeah.” John tucked his face into Chas’ neck. It wasn’t comfortable, but Chas wasn’t about to argue.

John was silent for long enough that Chas thought he’d fallen asleep, until he spoke up.

“I wouldn’t expect me to sleep through the night, mate.”

“Just stay in bed, would you?” Chas was tired. It had to be six in the morning, and he should be out by noon, if he wanted to make good money. Bloody Thursdays.

“I might hit you. I thrash.”

“I’ve had worse. Just… stay in bed?”

John rolled over, so they were face to face, breath to breath. “All right, Chas.”

Chas squeezed John’s hip, his arse, the back of his thigh. Anything to soothe the way terror rattled under his skin. “They weren’t good to you, were they? In Newcastle?”

John breathed out. “No.” He breathed in. “They thought I killed a little girl.”

Chas let that sit in the air, let it hang, painful, until John’s heartbeat stopped hammering quite so fast.

“Go to sleep, John.”


End file.
